Free Google tools that you may not be using but should

If you have a business and only use Google for your online searches, you are missing out on valuable opportunities to improve and grow.

This list is my own selection based on what I know and use. These tools are not all the available Google has for us, but they are a good start to try on your business activities.

I know this can be obvious, but I have to say it. One advantage of working with the Google tools is that everything works under the same system, they communicate easily with each other and you only need an account to access all these services, so you do not need to open an account here and there.

Let’s start with the most basic, and everything begins with this.

Gmail

Gmail is one of the most popular webmail services in the world. It allows you to organize your mail by tags, automate certain actions, filter emails, and has a magnificent antispam system. Also, you have an option to work offline.

It is one of those tools in which it is advisable to delve into its configuration to get the most out of it.

Also, if you already use another mail service or different accounts; you can configure Gmail to see them all in one place, even the ones for your business.

Gmail is free, but there is an option with monthly payment. This option allows you to use your own domain (yourname@yourcompany.com) to look professional and not only with an email “@gmail.com”. Also, you have more storage available for Gmail and all the other services.

If you use Chrome browser, you can add extensions to add more specific and suitable features for your Gmail.

Keep

This is one of my favorites. Formerly, I was an Evernote user to organize my notes and lists. I use Google Keep to do my notes, ideas, and information to remember in the future.

Once I met Google Keep, I started using it more and more until it became my favorite tool to organize my information. It is powerful and simple at the same time; the learning curve is fast.

You can create notes and lists of whatever you want, typed, handwritten, audios, attach videos, drawings and tag them.

And of course, you can access your notes almost from any device, either computer, tablet or phone, which makes it very suitable, at least for me.

Docs & Sheets

I am not an expert in Excel or Word, but as an average user, I can tell you Google Suite is much more than enough for 80% of users of Microsoft Office.

If you are concerned about compatibility with the suite from Microsoft, you should know that you can open, edit and save documents in Word and Excel formats.

People can share co-create the same document at the same time. Your team members can collaborate creating and modifying the documents in real-time and you can see who edited it and what part edited.

Docs and Sheets are not the only parts of the Suite but are the main ones. You can also make forms and surveys with Forms, and Slides is the equivalent of Powerpoint, to make presentations.

The Suite works around Google Drive, here is where the files are stored and you can use it as the starting point to create your documents.

Drive

Drive is the Google’s file storage service. It is similar to others like Dropbox, Box, OneDrive, etc. But if you want to use Google Suite, you will find Drive especially helpful that everything is centralized on this point.

The free version starts with 15 GB of storage (more than the other services mentioned before in the free version). It is true that this space is shared with the other services such as Gmail, Docs, Sheets, and Photos, but I have been using these apps for several years and I have not passed more than half of this amount.

In addition to Drive, Google has Google One in which you can buy a monthly subscription with different levels of additional storage.

It is an excellent choice if you need to store and share files with your team members, clients or suppliers.

Calendar

For many, Google Calendar is a great application. Personally, I think it is a regular agenda like others.

However, what makes it truly useful is integration with the other tools from Google. You can share events with your contacts and have your information within reach of one click. It’s integrated with Google Maps to suggest the best route and time to get to your appointments. Log events from information in your Gmail, and have several hidden features.

Contacts

Google Contacts can be your total address book, and similar to Calendar, Contacts has its strength in the integration with the other Google tools. From Maps to know the location of your contacts, to Google Suite to share and work collaboratively and in real-time with them.

All your contacts can be available on your computer as on your phone or any other mobile device with internet.

Photos

The main use for this service is to have the family and personal photos in the cloud and share them with anyone (besides making some cuteness like collages and movies of your photos).

But for your business, let’s just take one example. If you need to take pictures of fieldwork or to show the order’s progress to your customer, you would usually take the photos on your phone and send them either by message or by email. But this service automatically uploads your pictures to the cloud and from there you can sort and share and find.

You can create and share albums with your clients, and every time you upload a picture to that album, your client has the access automatically.

This service is included in your 15Gb available of your Google account. Starting June 1, 2021, you will need to have a subscription to Google One to use more than that space for your photos.

I particularly like the smart search to find photos by faces, objects, places, colors, time, etc.

And of course, you can use any of your photos to easily add them to any document, contact or email.

Trends

This is one of those simple, useful, and powerful tools that let you know what people are searching for in Google.

This service lets you know the search trends, and you can filter them by topic, time period, and geographical location.

Just as an example, if you were selling cakes, you would like to know what is people looking for? Are they looking more for strawberry cakes? or chocolate or pecan cakes? What months are most searched for cupcakes?

Now you can see the possibilities, don’t hesitate to use this tool for your business.

Adwords: Google Keyword planner

Keyword Planner is a product integrated with AdWords, and although the latter is a payment service, you can use Keyword Planner for free (but you need to activate your account). It provides you with the resources to plan your Google Ads campaign.

It can give you an invaluable level of information that you could use as a quick market survey. You get information on the search volumes of the words you are interested in.

Do you want to know how many people are looking for your services? what other words or phrases related to your business are they looking for? Are they looking directly on Google, or Maps, or Youtube?

You can also discard terms that you are not interested in. If you offer installation services for wood floors, you will not be interested to know if they are looking for ceramic floors. You can also make comparisons between periods of time. It’s like a hyper-vitamined Google Trends. You just have to dedicate time and imagination to get the information you need.

Analytics

To explain what Analytics is to anyone who does not know about this tool, I can say imagine your website as a supermarket, I mean a physical store. With Analytics you can know how many people came into your website, where they came from, what they saw, how long they were in a section. And more, much more.

Analytics keeps track of and reports traffic to your website. Its use is based on goals and you can establish them based on sales, lead generation, visits, and conversions (users who interacted with your page, whether they contacted, bought, or subscribed)

Those who know about Analytics, know that it is much more complete and complex than this little explanation. But here I leave you this seed of information.

Search Console

Indispensable to visit this tool frequently if online positioning is important for your business. This is a “must use” site to see and analyze how Google sees your website and then make the necessary changes to improve your search positioning.

Google Search Console requires more than just basic knowledge, but you can take the first step and do what maybe your competitors are not doing to appear in searches.

Voice

I find this tool useful mainly if you are self-employed or own a small business. Basically, you can have a new free phone number that you can use with your cell phone.

It is interesting because you can separate and control the calls and text messages from your business than the personal ones. Each with its own phone number and its own voicemail.

If you can not answer a call, Google Voice can notify you through an email with a transcribed messages from the voicemail.

Also, has an advantage that may appeal to some, you may have phone calls directly in your computer.

My Business

If you have one or several brick-and-mortar stores or offices, this tool is for you. With Google My Business you control your business’s information in Google Search and Google Maps, thus, make easier for your public to find you and to know about you. They can see your hours, exact location, your reviews, etc.

You can add photos of your products and store facilities. For mobile searches, you can add a button so they can call you directly from Google Maps and navigate with the GPS directly to your location.

Tables

Google Tables is one of their new addition of services that can be really helpful in your business.

This service is a sort of mix of a database with a spreadsheet. The purpose is to structure data, whatever you need, to track and convert in a different task. This is helpful for project management.

You can use it as a project management tool, but also to track customers and sales (CRM), to track employees’ work, or for visualization of operations inside a company.

It’s a tool for multiple uses, and also, it can work for individuals as for teams.

As you can imagine, you can integrate with different applications and automate tasks. Also, you can do various ways to present the data, like Kanban Board layout (boards of groups)

At the moment of writing this text, there are two options, free for individuals or single users, or for teams with a lot more possibilities of expansion, in this case, the price is $10.00 /month/user.

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Now, I want to encourage you to do your homework. If you didn’t know some of these tools, try them, see how they can benefit your business. Take some time to learn and explore its configurations to best suit your needs.

These are not all the tools that this internet giant has. If you know others and you want to share them, everyone would love to know how do you use them for your business. Participate by leaving your comment down below these lines.

Also, if you want me to write more deeply about any of these tools, or if you want a tutorial, leave your message.

I hope this collection was useful to you. Contact me directly if you need the design of your logo, advertising or website I will be happy to accompany you in your entrepreneurship.